it in loathing, and Farag wept
because he said the world's face had been blackened? What men who have
not yet ridden beyond the sound of any horn recall the midnight run
which ended--Beagleboy leading--among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and the
oath, taken Abo e bones, to forget the worry? The desert run, when Abu
Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile point to earth in
a desolate khor--when strange armed riders on camels swooped out of a
ravine, and instead of giving battle, offered to take the tired hounds
home on their beasts. Which they did, and vanished.

Above all, who remembers the death of Royal, when a certain Sheikh
wept above the body of the stainless hound as it might have been his
son's--and that day the Hunt rode no more? The badly-kept log-book says
little of this, but at the end of their second season (forty-nine brace)
appears the dark entry: "New blood badly wanted. They are beginning to
listen to beagle-boy."

* * * * *

The Inspector attended to the matter when his leave fell due.

"Remember," said the Governor, "you must get us the best blood in
England--real, dainty hounds--expense no object, but don't trust your
own judgment. Present my letters of introduction, and take what they
give you."

The Inspector presented his letters in a society where they make much
of horses, more of hounds, and are tolerably civil to men who can
ride. They passed him from house to house, mounted him according to his
merits, and fed him, after five years of goat chop and Worcester sauce,
perhaps a thought too richly.

The seat or castle where he made his great coup does not much matter.
Four Masters of Foxhounds were at table, and in a mellow hour the
Inspector told them stories of the Gihon Hunt. He ended: "Ben said I
wasn't to trust my own judgment about hounds, but I think there ought to
be a special tariff for Empire-makers."

As soon as his hosts could speak, they reassured him on this point.

"And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again," said one.

"And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?" said
another.

"Wait a moment," said a large, clean-shaven man--not an M.F.H.--at the
end of the table. "Are your villagers habitually beaten by your Governor
when they fail to stop foxes' holes?"

The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector confessed
afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not looked so like
Be